“When you see two professional armed forces such as the
U.S. and Israeli air-defense forces working together and
practicing together, of course, it’s a message of deterrence,”
Brigadier-General Shachar Shohat said yesterday after surveying
anti-missile systems brought to Tel Aviv for the wargames. “I
hope the other side also understands it like that.”

Shohat and U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Craig Franklin
are running the month-long exercise dubbed “Austere Challenge
12” designed to create “stress situations” in Israel’s
airspace and off its Mediterranean coast that test the ability
of both countries to act against attacks.

The mock military maneuvers and computer war simulations
taking place on a Tel Aviv beach coincided with actual Israeli
air raids 70 kilometers (44 miles) to the south on the Gaza
Strip in response to Palestinian rocket attacks. Four Gaza
residents were killed by the Israeli strikes as Palestinian
militia groups launched at least 75 missiles into Israel,
wounding three foreign workers, two seriously, and damaging
property, according to police.

Sudanese Accusation

“The dozens of rockets fired from Gaza into the southern
part of our country demonstrate the threat to our citizens,”
Shohat said at a press conference with Franklin on the beach
with American and Israeli flags fluttering behind them.

Sudan yesterday accused Israel of attacking its Yarmouk
military factory, according to Cairo-based Middle East News
Agency, without presenting evidence to support the assertion.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak declined to comment on the
pre-dawn explosion that killed two people.

The fact that Israel is fighting Hamas, the Islamist
movement that controls Gaza, and preparing for a counterstrike
against Iran if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decides to
attack its nuclear facilities is just coincidence, Franklin
said.

‘Notional Scenario’

“This is not related to any real world scenario,” he
said. “This is an exercise with a notional scenario.”

Iranian officials say their nuclear program is intended
only for civilian purposes and that they will retaliate against
any Israeli military action. Hamas is considered a terrorist
organization by Israel, the U.S. and the European Union.

While Iran staged its own wargames last week, General
Hossein Salami said an Israeli attack “would be an opportunity
to destroy that regime,” according to the Iranian Students News
Agency. Hossein said Israel couldn’t sustain a long war and its
“threats are only psychological,” ISNA reported Oct. 18.

President Barack Obama’s administration has openly
disagreed with Netanyahu over how to halt Iran’s progress toward
the capability to produce an atomic weapon and the timing of any
military strikes to stop its work.

Austere Challenge 12 follows a U.S.-led exercise last month
that involved more than 30 nations in the largest mine-clearing
demonstration in the Persian Gulf region. Iranian officials have
periodically threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, through
which about 20 percent of the world’s oil is shipped daily.

War Exercises

Iran’s forces conducted three war exercises earlier this
year “meant to show offensive and defensive” missile
capabilities, the Pentagon said in a June 29 report to Congress.
The Islamic Republic’s military continues to improve the
accuracy and killing power of its long- and short-range
ballistic missiles, including designing a weapon to target
vessels, the Pentagon said.

Iran continues to develop ballistic missiles with the range
to reach regional adversaries, Israel and Eastern Europe,
including an extended-range Shahab-3 and a 2,000-kilometer
medium-range ballistic missile, according to the report.

The exercise in Israel includes personnel and a mobile
tactical-operations center from the year-old 10th Army Air &
Missile Defense Command in Kaiserslautern, Germany, whose
members showed off missile launchers and associated trucks and
heavy equipment before the generals spoke.

“This is what we use to sort out the threats and
friendlies,” Army Captain Mary Thurmond, 29, of Savannah,
Georgia, said, standing next to a massive radar truck. “The
cooperation between our two forces has been just amazing.”